The korea review (1901)

THE KOREA REVIEW A P R I L A Vagary of Fortune.

A KOREAN ROMANCE.

"Your son will die on his eighteenth birthday precisely at noon."

Three men were standing on a ledge of rock high up on a mountain side in central Korea. Behind them, built into the side of the cliff, half cave and half hut, was the home of a holy recluse. Before them the sun was sinking to rest behind a serrated line of mountain peaks that formed the. western horizon : but the thoughts of these three men were neither on the hut behind nor on the scene before them. The most strik- ing figure of the three was that of the hermit whose long scanty beard exaggerated the thinness of his face and whose eye, lit by die true ascetic fire, showed the power of mind to out-live matter.

The second figure was that of a high-born Korean, somew hat past middle age, dressed in the flowing robes that make the Korean gentleman the most dignified of all the dwellers in the Far East. The imperiousness of his mien and of his eye showed a man born to command. He was, in sooth, the Prime Minister of Korea. Beside him stood his only son. Sun-chang-i, a boy of fifteen years.

"Your soil will die on his eighteenth birthday precisely at noon."

The Prime Minister had not been able to withstand the temptation to look into the future and assure himself of the boy`s success in life and this doom had been pronounced not by an ordinary fortune-teller, or mudang, but by the saintliest hermit in the land. [page146]

The father's face bore a look of defiance against fate itself as he seized the boy's hand and led him rapidly down the steep path to the valley below where his escort awaited him. But the hermit remained standings on the mountain crag looking away into the distance with prophetic eye, careless alike of life or death.

As an embassy was about to be dispatched to the court at Peking; the Prime Minister secured an appointment in it for the boy and when he set out bade him consult the best diviner in that capital and see if the prophecy would be confirmed.

When Sun-change i came before that venerable man and told his story the old man shook his head and said:

"It is true. You must die on your fifteenth birthday" but after looking intently at the boy for some time he seized a pen and wrote a single sentence. Handing it to the boy he said:

"If there is anything that can save you it is that." Sun-chan-i took it with trembling hands and read the peculiar words.

"It is a great wrong for a nobleman to kill a slave without good cause but how much worse is it for a wife to kill her husband!"

Pondering this in his mind he turned his foot-steps to¬ward his distant home but the harder he thought the more bewildered he became. What possible relation could there he between him and nobleman's killing a slave or a wife's killing： her husband? Yet he was willing to use every possible means to avert his fate and so he put the piece of paper in his chumoni or pouch and kept it safe.

While he was absent from home on this journey an event occurred in Korea that had an important bearings upon his career and so we must leave him for the time, and go back to his father's house.

As the Prime Minister sat in his official reception room attending to the business of the office an attendant entered and announced that there was a criminal case to be considered. A slave had attacked his master and beaten him almost to death. The case was clean The prisoner himself did not deny the charge. The Minister in his indignation ordered the prisoner to be treated as a capital criminal, to have his [page147] head struck off, to have his wife strangled and to have his son tortured and finally-killed It was done and the whole family was destroyed, as the minister thought; but one member of it had been overlooked. A young girl, named Yi Wha, stood by while her father and mother were executed.

As she witnessed the awful spectacle her very soul seemed to be on fire. All purer and better emotions were dried up within her, the spirit of revenge flooded her whole being and took possession of every part. Life lay before her not full of promise and hope but of black despair, valuable only as it of¬fered an opportunity to avenge the unmerited suffering of her mother and brother. This one ambition took possession of her and her first step showed the depth of its hold upon her. She would not seek a hasty revenue. It should be maturely planned and carried out in such a manner that there should be no possibility of failure. She gathered together her few wretched garments and throwing the bundle over her shoulder started for the country begging her way as she went. She entered the mountainous country to the east and pushed on until she was in the midst of a wild and uninhabited district where she left the road and made her way up the side of a thickly wooded mountain. She searched until she found a comparatively level spot and there she made herself a hut of branches and turf. The next day saw her gathering wood and carrying it to the neighboring village and selling it for a pittance. She also made a little garden beside her hut and planted it, but her main work was the gathering and selling of wood.

A year passed by at the end of which she made a journey to the capital and returned with a beautiful swood hidden beneath her skirt. It represented the earnings of a whole year. From this time on she gathered and sold only enough wood to procure the food that was necessary to keep body and soul together. But she spent a greater part of her time in another and more mysterious manner. She had cleared a round open space in front of her hut and made it smooth and hard and there hour after hour and day after day she girded up her skirt with a rope belt and with the flashing weapon in hand practiced the sword dance. During the intervals of rest she seated her sell before a smooth hard stone and sharpened the sword until its edge was as keen as that of a razor. Her in- [page148] tention was to perfect herself in the great sword dance until she should be able to surpass the best dancers at the capital and then when she should be called to dance before the high dignitaries of the land her good sward would aid her to avenge on the son of the Prime Minister the deep injury that her family had received of his father's hands. Ah! that would be better than killing the Prime Minister himself far he had but one son and his death would end the line as her brother`s death had ended their`s.

But we must leave the girl Yi Wha as she sits grinding the edge of her avenging sword or throwing her limbs about in the wild ecstasy of the sword dance, and follow the fortunes of her intended victim.

When the boy San-chang-i reached his home after his journey to China he told his father what the soothsayer had predicted but said nothing about the mysterious sentence which he had received. On hearing this report the old gentleman gave up all hope that the prophecy might be false and surrendered to the inevitable, but he could not bear the constant presence of his son. It was a perpetual source of pain. So he decided to send the boy away from him and never set him again. Under pretense of attending to the boy`s educa¬tion he sent him to study at a school in a distant part of the country and as he bade him good bye he said:

"Stay at the school until I tell you to return. Do not come back until you receive a specific order from me."

So Sun-chang-i left his father's house. He was a diligent and careful student and made rapid progress but the thought of his coming fate constantly arose before his mind. "Of what use is my studying if I am to die on my eighteenth birthday? It would be better for me to spend the few years that remain in travelling and enjoying this good world which I must leave so soon." As he had no money with which to carry out this resolve he decided to break through the injunction of his father and go up to Seoul and ask for some money with which to travel. What was his father`s surprise therefore to see his son before him. "Pardon me, father, for breaking your commands but consider my position. Doomed to die in two years and a half, of what use are the Chinese classics to me? It would be far better for me to enjoy what little of life is left me in travel and observation. I have therefore come up to Seoul [page149] to ask you as a last request to give me the means to carry out my plan. I will promise never again to appear before you." The father immediately fell in with this idea and gave his son a considerable sum of money and sent him off.

The boy immediately set out upon his travels. South¬ward he wandered to the confines of the land and beyond to the island of Che-ju where under the shadow of old Hal-la San he looked into the fathomless hole from which four thousand years ago the fabled founders of Tam-na rose. Then he visit¬ed the ancient site of Sil-la`s capital, and fingered the jade flute that emits no sound if taken beyond the confines of its resting place. He visited the monastery where the rice kettle is so large that the cook has to go out in a boat to stir the rice in the middle. He beheld the eight wonders of the eastern coast, witnessed the battle of wild cats and rats on the island of Ul-leung, dreamed away a month among the monasteries of Diamond Mountain, saw the reflection of his face in Ki-ja`s well a jar of whose waters is a pound heavier than that of any other water in the land. But the boy was restless and dissatisfied ever wishing that the terrible secret of his fate had not been made known, to himバ ever pondering the enigmatical words upon the piece of paper which he still preserved. Finally his wanderings led him among the rugged mountains of the pro¬vince of Kang Wun celebrated in Korean story for their grandeur and beauty. Here in the contemplation of nature he found more peace than he had known for many a month. It seemed to reconcile him to his fate.

One afternoon he lingered longer than was his wont among the mountains and when he turned back toward the little hamlet where he lodged, night was already coming on. Before he had accomplished half the distance darkness had setttled down upon him. The path grew indistinct and presently he became aware that he had wandered from it. On each side towered high wooded slopes dimly visible against the half clouded heavens. Sun-chang-i sat down on the root of a great pine and tried to decide what it would be best to do in this predicament, but before he reached a conclusion his eye caught the glimmer of a fire far up the opposite height.

"Ah! there is the hut of some hunter or wood gatherer and I must seek its shelter for the night." [page150]

Suiting the action to the word he forced his way through underbrush and over fallen trees straight up the side of the mountain until he found himself in a small cleared spot beside the house. But a curious sight arrested his attention and made him stop before announcing himself. At one side of a circular spot of hard trodden earth in front of the house burned the bright fire of pine knots which had attracted his attention from below. But in the center of the open spot and facing the fire stood a young girl, her hair flying loosely over her shoulders, her arms bare and her skirt girded up so as to give free action to the limbs. Poised in her nana she held a glittering sword whose polished surface reflected the blaze of the fire.

Slowly she raised it until it pointed toward the zenith than her other hand rose slowly, to a horizontal position Slowly her lithe form swayed from side to side. Slowly her body turned to right and left trembling with suppressed emotion. Then her motions became more animated. She turned com¬pletely around with a light quick step then sprang to the right and left and presented the sword as if in a contest. Quicker and quicker she turned, faster and faster she struck and parried while the glittering sword seemed in the flashing rays of the fire to make a halo of diamond light about her head. Faster and faster she sped, fast and faster fell the blows, when, at the very climax of her frenzy, she gave a bound like a wounded tigress to the edge of the ring and buried half the blade in a rotten log which lay beside the fire. Leaving the weapon quivering in the log she covered her face with her hands and fell to the ground crying:

"I am avenged! avenged!"

Long she lay there as in a swoon and long the boy stood gazing in wonder not unmixed with fear at the startling spectacle. He had seen the sword dance before but never danced like this, never with such a thrilling ending. The fury of that last thrust and the flash of her eye as the weapon sank-into the wood made his flesh creep with horror for just so might a man pierce his deadliest foe. But at last he felt the necessity of making his presence known. Approaching into the ring he gave a low cough to attract the girl's atten¬tion and he succeeded better than he had expected. She [page151] sprang to her feet with a scream of terror, snatched the sword from its unnatural sheath and faced the intruder like a tigress at bay.

"Who and what are you?" she panted.

"I am only a belated traveller who has lost his way. I saw the light of your fire from the valley below and I made my way here to beg your hospitality for the night. I meant no harm." Yi Wha stood a moment gazing at him incredulous¬ly but finally let fall the point of her sword and answered:

"But I am a woman and alone ; how can I offer you the hospitality of this miserable hut?"

"True, but when I saw your fire from below how was I to know ? However, I will not enter you hut. Let me only lie here by the fire until the morning. I ask nothing more."

"No" replied the girl "You must occupy the hut and I will stay here by the fire. I am accustomed to such a life while I see that you have lived in better circumstances and the exposure would be more difficult for to bear." So she prevailed upon him to occupy the hut while she seated herself beside the fire and watched out the long hours of the night. But neither of them could sleep. He could not banish from his mind that flashing eye, that splendid from, proud as a queen's though, clad in rustic garb. She was the first being that had been able to stir him from the deep despondency into which the knowledge of his overhanging fate had plunged him.

"Ah! if I could only rest here forever! If I could only pursuade this wild creature to be my wife how willingly would I share the hardships of her mountain life!"

The girl likewise pondered upon the singular encounter, the young man's delicacy and his evident nobility of character. Softer feelings for the time drove out the hateful thoughts which she had cherished so long. "Alas, if I had not been chained to the awful destiny in store for me; if it had been my lot to be the happy wife of some honest, generous man like this, how my worthless life might have blossoned into hope." And so the long hours passed until the morning broke, which brought Sun-chang-i one day nearer to his doom and Yi Wha one day nearer her revenge. _

When he emerged from the hut he found her busily pre- [page152] paring the morning meal. They saluted each other with evi¬dent embarrassment, the result of their mutual thoughts about each other, but as Sun-chang-i busied himself in helping his hostess their restraint wore off and soon they were convers¬ing as freely and affably as if they had been old acquaintances. They shared the frugal repast, Sun-chang-i drawing it out as long as possible ; but when it was done he had no possible excuse for staying longer so he reluctantly said good-bye, after thanking the girl for her kindness, and wended his way down the mountain to the nearest village where he determined to spend a few days in hopes of meeting again his mountain hostess. Every day his eye scanned the road along which she must come, but she did not appear. He felt an inexplicable longing to see her again and when a week had passed it had grown to such proportions that he decided that he would invent some means by which he could communicate with her, He know that in his present guise she would look upon him with great suspicion for his dress and language both betrayed his noble birth. He did not care to conceal his identity but only to allay her suspicion as to his intentions.

So he purchased a common woodman's dress and swinging an axe over his shoulder struck into the forest and made his way toward Yi Wha's cabin. But before lie reached it the sound of an axe greeted his ears and presently he caught sight of his interesting friend striking lusty blows at the body of a thick pine. On her face there was the same stern look as when she drove the sword point into the rotten log, as if each blow of the axe severed the head of a deadly enemy, and when the great tree came crashing to the ground there was the same fierce look of unholy triumph.

When she caught sight of him she started violently and the tell-tale bood came surging up to her face, while the only words that she could frame were:

"You here!"

"Yes, I am here" he answered "but come, sit down with me on this tree that you have just felled and let me tell you why I am here and in these garments."

Her eyes fell before his glance and she seemed inclined to turn and fly but by a strong effort she controlled herself and quietly sat down on the mossy trunk. [page153]

"Now listen," he said "You and I are two honest people, however strange our present position may be when compared with the usual conventionalities ; but there is something in each of our lives that sets us apart from ordinary men, something that frees us from conventional standards, I am born of a noble family, but for no fault of my own I am cast out, ostracized, disowned, I am a wanderer without house or home. What avails my nobility? I should be driven from my father's door were I to return. I have no means with which to live as becomes my birth and so it happens that I have cast off my nobleman's clothes and am dressed as be¬comes my worldly position but I retain my high blood and my intrinsic nobility. These are not incompatible with a life of manual labor. But why do I say this to you? Because I have seen that your real nobility of mind is as much higher than your birth as my birth is higher than my present posi¬tion, so you are every bit my equal and I ask you to be my wife, to let me share the toil of this rugged life with you, to lean upon you, if need be, until these hands unused to toil shall become hardened to the plow and axe, hoping for the time when you shall lean on me. Answer me. Will you be my wife?"

Who shall describe the conflict that was raging in her heart. Love beating at the portal where revenge held sway. On the one hand her lover's ardent gaze and on the other those accusing eyes of her murdered father! Love and duty! One or the other she must choose ; both she could not. She scorned herself that this new feeling, this stange warm feeling whose life was just begun and might be counted in hours should dispute the empire of her heart with that despot, Revenge, which had been her only hope and aim for years, No! she could not give it up. She turned to her lover.

"You do not know what you ask. Let me tell you once for all that mine is a devoted life ; devoted to one terrible ob¬ject that before many years have passed must be accomplished and once accomplished must sweep my life: with it to a doom I dread to contemplate. I cannot tell you all. Let it suffice that ere two years are passed I shall have surrendered up my life to a noble cause. Yet do not mistake me or deem me insen¬sible of the love you offer me. Were it not for another over- [page154] mastering passion that holds me in its power I feel that I could love you as few men have ever been loved. Oh that I had never met you." She covered her face with her hands and wept aloud while her whale frame shook with the intensity of her emotion. While Sun-chang-i waited for this paroxysm to pass he was busily revolving in his mind what he should say. When she could listen he said:

"I have not told you all. I, too, am doomed to die before two years have passed. Here is still another evidence that Heaven has destined us for each other. There are two years of life before us. Let us live them together. Even the knowledge of our impending fate cannot rob us of the happiness of that short interval, for we are not of those who fear death. I promise you that when the time corals for the fulfillment of your mission whatever it may be I will not detain you an instant. Together. we will cast off these human bonds and who can tell but we shall meet hereafter, our several missions accomplished, to renew this sweetest of all relationships that I ask you to form. Come. Will you not live the remaining fragment of your life with me?"

Then love renewed the battle against vengeance and won.

"Why should I not yield?" she said to herself "He absolves me from all obligation after two years are expired. Why should I not in the mean time take just one taste of the happiness of life? If only I perform my dreadful task at last all will be well; besides he too is destined to an early death ana so I shall not leave him to mourn my loss." She turned and put her hand in his while her glorious eyes thrilled him through and through with a nameless delight as she softy answered.

"Yes, I will be your wife to honor and love you. Only this, when my time has come I must go and do my work. If you will let me put that duty first, the duty to a dead father. I will be yours in all else. I would not dare to do it were it not that you will not survive me long to mourn my loss."

So, beneath the forest trees, these lovers plighted their troth. How little did the maiden think when she made that one condition that the man she was to kill was the very one to whom she had pledged her love and from whom she had ex¬acted the promise that in nothing would he hinder her in the [page155] performance of her dreadful task whatever it might be. A quiet unpretentious wedding at the house of one of her acquaintances sealed their mutual compact and together they took up their abode in the mountain hut.

NARRO.

(Concluded in the next number.)

The Introduction of Chinese into Korea,

TRANSLATED FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO COURANT'S

BIBLIOGRAPHIE COREENNE.

Documents relating to the introduction and the use of Chinese characters in Korea are few in number. The Sam-guk Sa-geui, a work written in Chinese in the eleventh century does however mention several interesting facts which show that the history of Chinese writing differs for the various states then occupying the Peninsula. Ko-gu-ryu, situated to the north-west, appears to have extended at certain periods over a considerable part of what is to-day Manchuria ; by its very position it had relationships in the way of commerce and war with the Kingdoms of North China, and so it is in the territory of Ko-gu-ryu that legend and history fix the site of the governments of Tan-gun*, Keui-ja† and Wi-man‡. The last two of these were Chinese refugees, and so with them should we find the first appearance of civilization, at least the Chinese form of it.

The Sam-guk Sa-geui mentions that in 600 A. D., it be¬ing the eleventh year of King Yung-yang§, the Prince com- manded Yi Mun-jin, a doctor of the College of Literati, to epitomize the ancient histories of the country. Yi Mun-jin wrote a work of five volumes on the subject. The Sam-guk Sa-geui adds the following words : "Since the origin, of the Kingdom, characters have been in use, for at that time there existed one hundred volumes of memoirs, written by different persons, called Yu-geui. At this time the text was revised
T. G. T`. G.―Tong-guk T`ong-gam, 東國通鑑 S. G. S. G.―Sam-guk Sa-geui, 三國史記 *檀君 †箕子 ‡衛滿 §嬰陽 [page156]

and fixed." The antiquity of at least a limited use of Chin¬ese characters in the country is further supported by the fact that from the time of T`a-ja*, who ascended the throne in 53 A. D., the names of kings are all explainable in Chinese ; till to ward the end of the fourth century the Chinese expression made use or is at the same time the name of the sovereign and that of the locality where his tomb is situated ; the designa¬tions or special names of the kings are, on the other hand, Buddhistic. It was in 372 A. D, the second year of King So Su-rim† that the new religion was introduced into Ko-gu-ryu and it led to a revival of Chinese study. Buddhistic books were introduced and the King established a school called Ta-hak for the teaching of young people (T.G.T`.G.IV, 4 ; S.G.S. G. XVIII 3)

For the Kingdom of Pak-che, situated at the South of Ko-gu-ryu, on the west side of Korea, the Sam-guk Sa-geui limits itself to noting from some more ancient documents that in the reign of Keum So-jo (346-375 A. D.) they began to use writing to note down events (S.G.S.G.XXIV.) Is this only a question cencerning the origin of written annals? Would it not seem unlikely that a Kingdom possessing the art of writing had existed more than three centuries and a half without its even having occurred to any one to note down important events? I should be inclined to think, for my part, that writing was known nothing of till this time, and that it was brought by Buddhist missionaries who then went every¬where throughout the Peninsula (T.G.T`.G.IV.7.) It is only a hundred years later that the names of the kings of Pak-che cease to be simple transcriptions without sense in Chinese, ana take the form of temple names ; particular names in Pak-che as in Ko-gu-ryu remain about all, till the absorp¬tion of these states by Sil-la, pure and simple transcriptions.

It is true that ancient Japanese, works on history date the arrival of the scholar Wa-ni (Wang-in) at 285 A, D. He was a native of Pak-che and brought with him the Analects and the Thousand Character Classic. This statement has been accepted by the greater number of European scholars, but Mr. Aston has proven that many of the ancient Japanese an-

*太祖 †小獸林 [page157]
nals are not worthy of confidence ; in partcular he has shown that all the period of relationship between Pak-che and Japan has been interpolated by ancient Japanese authors, in such a way as to fill up the gaps in the half fabulous chronology which they find in the traditions. On this point he is of the same mind as the Japanese scholar Motoori. Mr. Aston brings down the events of this period two cycles or one hundred and twenty years. The introduction of Chinese characters into Japan would then have taken place at the end of the fifth century and this, date coincides very nearly with that of the use of writing in pak-che, As to the name of the Thousand Character Classic mentioned at this time, there need be no dif¬ficulty, since the work seems to have been a first edition, be¬fore that of the sixth century which has come down to us.

Sil-la, occupying the south-east of the Peninsula, was more distant from China than its neighbors and extended along eastern regions still barbarian. It is strange indeed to read in the Sam-guk Sa-geui (1. 6) that King Yu-ri, in the ninth year of his reign (32 A. D.,) gave to the inhabitants of the six cantons of his Kingdom, Chinese family names, Yi, Ch`oe, Son, Chong, Pa and Sul, the three royal families being called Pak, Suk and Kim. If the correctness of these asser¬tions is proven, we would conclude from it that there was a knowledge of Chinese characters on the part of the people of Sil-la at this remote period. We must not fail to mention as proof in support of this the history of those Chinese who came to the country of Chin-han, in order to escape the tyranny of the Emperor Chi of Tshin and who gave to the country, on landing, the very name of the dynasty that chased them from their native land. Chinese authorities have in fact made the two names Chin and Tshin to agree. We might also mention the refugees from north Korea, the state of Keui-ja which was Chinese in origin as referred to in the opening lines of the Sam-guk Sa-geui. But all this is the shifting region of legend ; in fact as one runs through the Sam-guk Sa-geui, it is not before the end of the sixth century that we commence to find Chinese, names for people. Till that time ail the names made use of have the unmistakable appearance of words trans¬cribed from a foreign language. The three royal names of Pak, Suk and Kim are to be found, it is true, dating from the [page158] sixth century, but the explanation in the Sam-guk on the subject of these names shows clearly that Chinese character? were used to represent the native word which they resembled in sound. This is true, at any rate, in two cases out of the three. Moreover what is the documentary value of the Sam-gud Sa-geui for this remote period? This is a question which I shall examine later.

Even though the family names in question had been in use since the founding of the Kingdom, it does not prove that Chinese characters had been employed since that time in the country. If we admit as a fact the statement of an ancient Chinese immigration, it would not be astonishing that the de¬scendants of these fugitives, in forgetting almost all the cul¬ture of their mother country and with it the art of writing, had preserved the simplest customs of their civilization and before everything else the family names, and even a tradition of the mysterious signs representing them. But that is only a supposition, and the fact drawn from the reading of the Sam-guk is that up to the second half of the sixth century the names were not in use.

On examination of the proper names of the kings of Sil-la it appears that before the reign of Sil-sung* who ascended the throne in 402 A. D. they were transcribed from a foreign language ; the very name Sil-sung has a Chinese appearance. That of his successor has two forms of spelling and seems in¬deed to be a transcription of Korean. Cha-pi† who reigned from 458 to 479 might have taken his name from Buddhistic books ; but the two designations of the King following (479-500), the one at last Pi-cho‡, has nothing of Chinese about it. Apart from these the names employed to designate the kings are easily explainable and resemble the names of Chinese temples.

It was King Chi-cheung, in 503, who abandoned for the first time his Korean little Ma-rip-gan for the Chinese title Wang. At the same time the chief officials asked of him that he fix definitely the name of the Kingdom. Till then they had called it Sa-ra§, Sa-ro|| and Sil-la¶, but now they were of the opinion that the last appellation should he held to, for Sin
*實聖 †慈悲 ‡毗處 §斯羅 ||斯盧 ¶新羅 [page160]
Kingdom of Sil-la does not seem to have profited by the pro¬gress of civilization until later, after Japan, in the course of the sixth century.

Now to what extent are the statements that I have made on the authority of the Sam-guk Sa-geui to be depended on? That is to say, what is the documentary value of this work? It was written by a nigh officer of the court of the Kings of Ko-ryu, Kim Pu-sik*, who lived at the end of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the twelfth, two centuries and a half after the disappearance of the three kingdoms whose history he wrote, at a time when the monarchy of Ko-ryu had borrowed much from the Songs of China. The ancient language and institutions were forgotten or no longer understood, more because of the contempt felt by the literati of the Chinese school for their barbarian ancestors than in consequence of opposition between Ko-ryu, the northern and military monarchy，and Sil-la the Kingdom of the south which was the last survival of the Hans. The tribes of Ka-ya†, and the King¬doms of Pak-che and Ko-gu-ryu absorbed by Sil-la in the sixth and seventh centuries were still more than ever forgotten These diverse circumstances were somewhat unfavorable to the compilation of an exact and impartial history ; however, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Sam-guk Sa-geui is the most ancient Korean work existing on the history of the country. The authenticity has never been questioned, the style is simple and bears marks of antiquity and good faith, the plan of the work is very clear and throughout imitative of the historical memoirs of Ta Ma-ch'un.

Besides this work having been prepared by royal order Kim Pu-sik must have had at his disposal all documents then existing which have today disappeared. He mentions some of them without giving anywhere a complete list, and as he has not included in his work any chapters on literary history, deviating in this respect from Chinese models, we have on ancient literature only fragmentary notes lew in number. We know at least that Kim Pu-sik consulted them as well as the archives and other documents and we stats that his work is in accord throughout with Chinese histories and with some
*金富軾 †伽倻 [page161]
ancient Korean works of a later period yet sufficiently remote to be drawn from the same source. What then was the degree of correctness of the documents that Kim Pu-sik had? Among books and archives of whatever kind, if those which relate to Ko-gu-ryu seem to date indirectly from the very origin of the Kingdom, they do not go further back than the end of the fourth century for Pak-che and the commencement of the sixth for Sil-la, for it is at this double epoch that Chinese writing was. introduced and developed in South Korea, as I have shown above and as Ma Toan-lin states, and nowhere does there exist any trace or mention of writing used before this time. Then all the most ancient history rests on simple oral tradition, most uncertain. This will explain the doubt¬ful points, the miraculous doings, the lack of definite informa¬tion for the first four or five centuries of Korean history. The cyclical characters of the years which are found at the begin-ning of the Sam-guk could very easily be added after it was done, as has taken place for the early history of China and Japan ; the astronomical phenomena noted might furnish a verification. Mr. Aston has made an attempt at this process but without any result.

But the fact that engages my attention at this moment, namely the introduction of writing, marks precisely the limit between oral tradition and written history. Little time passed by till the art unknown till then to Koreans was applied to the recording of events : the annals of Pak-che date from the very introduction of Buddhism into the peninsula, those of Sil-la commence seventeen years after the first definite preach¬ing of the Hindoo religion in the Kingdom. These facts stated of the Sam-guk on the subject of the. first transplanting of characters are worthy of confidence on the same score as all later events and without being subject to the doubt that I have mentioned with regard to the ancient history of Korea.

What was first brought by the Buddhist monks were the books of their religion : then followed the Chinese Classics, various historical works, works 0n astronomy, astrology, me¬dicine and some Taoist books. The indications that I have found from Ma Toan-lin and among Korean authors on the subject of books brought from China are to be found in the Bibliographie in the places assigned by the nature of the [page162] works to which they relate. These are the works that have been studied by Koreans especially in the College of Literati established by the different Kings of the peninsula. They were also in the hands of the Wha-rang, young people chosen by the Kings of Sil-la for their grace and intelligence, taught physical exercise and all intellectual elegance and called then to the highest offices. These works were made the object of examination, begun in Sil-la at the end of the eighth century. Sons of influential families devoted themselves with earnest¬ness to Chinese study ; from 640 Koreans went to study in China. The most celebrated statesmen of Sil-la such as Kirn Heum-un, Kim Yu-sin and Kim In-mun, the last a son of the King, were celebrated for the extent of their literary knowledge.

Not content with studying foreign books Koreans en¬deavored to write in the language of their instructors. The Mun-hun Pi-go quotes a phrase written in Chinese taken from the annals of the Kingdom of Ka-rak, without stating whether the quotation is drawn directly from the annals, which would seem little likely, or whether it was mentioned in another work. However that may be, this Kingdom having submit¬ted to Sil-la in 532 A. D. it follows that before this date there were Koreans of the south able to write in Chinese. The passages, that the Sam-guk draws from the annals of the three Kingdoms and from other ancient memoirs, the texts of decrees and petitions that it repeats are in the same language ; a little later it is in Chinese that the King of Sil-la corresponds with the governor sent by the Tangs. There is no notice¬able difference between the style employed by the Koreans and that of the Chinese of the same period : perhaps originally Chinese were employed as official secretaries in the penin¬sula as seems to have been frequently the case with the Tartar people of the north of China ; perhaps the Korean writer limited himself to copying phrases from Chinese books and inserting them from end of end. The Japanese of antiquity were very expert in this sort of mosaic. Mr. Satow says that they came to treating subjects purely native without using a phrase that had not been taken from Chinese works. It might not be impossible that it was from facts of this kind that the tradition was handed down which makes Ch'oe ch'i-wun the [page163] first Korean who wrote Chinese and that until him they had confined themselves to phrases taken entire from authors.

JAS. S. GALE.

(To be continued.)